Every morning when Peanut wakes up, he climbs to his nest, tosses the plastic toy to the floor of his cage, tosses the bottle cap to the floor, tosses the paper strips to the floor, and eats the sunflower seed that's hidden underneath. This is called De-Nestifying; the two crashes often wake me up in the morning. Then, he goes over to his pink dish and tosses the paper strips to the floor, and eats the sunflower seed and oat groats that are hidden underneath. This is called De-Dishing. This happens every morning.

Every morning.

Except today.

I was up a little late, took an early walk, and ran an errand, so it was actually close to 10 by the time I tended to the birds. Bird Social Services will be taking me away for negligent behavior, I'm sure. And under the circumstances, you'd think that Peanut would not only have eaten all his morning snacks, but the dishes they were hidden in, too.

But no.

The pink dish was empty, down to the leftover oat groat dust. But the nest was UNTOUCHED.

Now, I know stranger things have happened. The most recent US presidential election comes to mind. But if I were you, I'd be very careful for the next day or two. A full nest at 10 am could well be a harbinger of doom.

If your companion parrot gets a lot of pinfeathers on unreachable parts of his/her body — this would mostly be the head — then you should really try to preen them yourself. Basically, you gently squish the sheath surrounding the pinfeather so it'll break off into little flakes. If you have to squish too hard, the sheath isn't ready. I use the fingernails on my index finger and thumb, kept long for this very purpose. But fingernails aren't always long enough, or precise enough to groom the head of a tiny parrotlet.

Another option is to get a soft-bristled toothbrush, probably kids' size. If your bird isn't terrified of it, you can use it to gently brush the pinfeather — along the grain, in this case you're trying to knock off any pinfeather flakes that are ready to go. If that doesn't work, use the tip of a finger (probably the one with the longest fingernail) to gently rub all the bird's feathers the wrong way. Literally. Push your finger into the bird's head until you get under a few feathers, and push them up. With luck, this will also help knock off any pinfeather flakes that are ready to go.

Never force preen your bird. It might take a few tries, over days or months, for your bird to get used to being preened by a human. This should be a nice, bonding experience.

Be gentle. And good luck.

By the way, has anyone heard of using velcro? I haven't.

Last year North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota — the key sunflower-growing states — had a cold, wet Spring. High-selling soybeans crowded the fields. And then there was the nasty, white mold. The Agriculture Department says this season's harvest is down 29 percent. Production of the large sunflower seeds grown for human consumption hasn't looked this bleak in more than a decade.

What does all this mean, you ask? According to the article "Baseball's Seedless Spring" from the Washington Post, it means that baseball players might run out of sunflower seeds this season.

Clearly, they don't know what they're talking about.

Who cares about baseball players when you live with a bird that will peck your eyes out if you run out of tasty seeds?!?!

When Peanut flies somewhere and gets himself lost, he goes into silent mode — not a bad thing for a prey animal to do in a new, scary situation. Unfortunately, this behavior can make it tough for me to find him again. Oh, sure, he's bright green and all, but he's also really, really small. And when he's scared, it doesn't matter if I promise him tasty seeds, or make kissy noises, or sing the theme song to Malcolm In The Middle, he's quiet as can be.

On the other hand,when Peanut flies somewhere and gets himself into a spot he likes, he squeaks and chortles and chortles and squeaks. He's still small, of course, and quite capable of hiding himself completely, but at least he's noisy.

Now that he's molted all his clipped wing feathers, he can fly into all sorts of interesting spots, like that dangerous place better known as the top of the Finsterium. This picture doesn't show it, but at first I couldn't see him at all, he was happily chortling and squeaking completely out of view. I had to stand on the couch to see him exploring on top of the Finsterium. Apart from the electrical cords, nails and holes for him to get tangled in, the dust is so thick he could get lost in it.

So, obviously, we took a trip to the vet's office today, for a $2 "mini" wing clip.

On the left is the napkin I threw over him and grabbed him with (it's called "toweling" in the bird world), and on the right is Peanut in his jail, about to be driven off for the clipping. Four feathers trimmed on each wing did the trick. He can still fly from his house to the Finsterium, and to the top of my head, but hopefully, he won't be able to fly into dangerous things.

Wasabi's name is really Wasabi (Peas).

You know that "lip-smacking" action? Not "lip-smacking good" exactly, but that thing you do when you have peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth, or what people do when their dentures are out. It's an open-mouthed, tongue-smacking event, at much as anything. Well, Finsters do that.

We had turkey sandwiches for lunch today, on bread with sunflower seeds baked inside. Peanut had baked sunflower seeds for lunch today, along with a molecule or two of bread that stuck to the seed when he dug it out of the bread. The secret? He hopped up on the sandwich.

Although I'm not bothered so much by time changes now that I don't go to an office every day, the birds don't like Daylight Savings Time, or the lack thereof. Twice a year they get a bit flummoxed by the abrupt change in their routine. This isn't helped much by the light timers I use, which are the typical, cheap ones you find in all the hardware stores. They aren't very precise — either for setting the time of day or for choosing the on and off moments — so it's difficult to coordinate the three lights. The task is made all the more difficult by the location of the timers: one requires climbing under the Finsterium, one requires climbing under Peanut's house, and one requires climbing under the couch reaching behind the couch and unplugging the thing to get to it.

(And here you thought I'd completely changed my life around to accommodate the birds. Don't worry, moving the couch and re-wiring the apartment so I can move the outlets are next on the list.)

Ideally, Bob's light should turn on first, and turn off last. It can take a few days of crawling under things to get it right, though. Last night the Finster's light stayed on far too late, and this morning (I actually changed the timers yesterday, not the day before when the TV told me to) one of the lights went on too early — it was before 6 am so I didn't bother getting up to see which one it was.

So far things are going well: the Finster's light went out a 8:49, Peanut's light went out at 8:56, and Bob's light at 9:33. We'll see how things go in the morning.

The time change did give me the opportunity to discover something about the Finsters. Sunday morning, the start of Daylight Savings Time, but before I'd changed the timers, I woke up early. Since I knew the birds would have to get used to it soon enough, I started preparing hot caffienated beverages before any lights turned on. Since the sun was already starting to come up, I was able to see three tiny Spice Finster heads popping up on top of the second higher nest box on the left, and three tiny Spice Finster bodies flying out of that box. Now, Frank, Earl Grey and Goober were in their usual places, which leaves two missing Finsters.

In fact, Bruce assured me that there were NO Finsters sleeping on top of that left nest box on Saturday night. Which obviously means they can turn invisible.

The things you can learn when you get up early!

Today I refilled the Magic Purveyor of Tasty Seeds (the white plastic nest box) with millet spray, and while I had the Finsterium door open I decided to take some photographs. Although none of the Finsters flew out of the cage, they also didn't sit around calmly, posing prettily while I took pictures. Instead, there was quite a bit of crazy flapping while they tried to figure out what I was doing. Goober, however, remained calm and in her box the whole time.

Here are a few pictures:


I periodically worry about Goober. She's had her health issues, and to my knowledge, she's the oldest hen in the flock. Hens often don't live as long as male birds, since they are prone to egg binding and other calcium-related problems. I'm a little worried right now because I just saw her napping on the edge of the water dish. Apart from the fact that the ground generally isn't a safe place for a bird to sleep, I've never seen her do that before — and like Finsters, new things can make me panic.